Distance and Discoveries
by IllusionaryShadow
Summary: Heather had always looked forward to attending Hogwarts as the witch she was. Yet leaving behind an older brother incapable of coming with her to the wondrous world of magic was difficult. Well at Hogwarts Heather encounters new people, and among them the Boy Who Lived. Contains OC:s and follows the years Harry attended Hogwarts, but with another side to the story. Future pairing


**Chapter One: _Summer spent waiting_**

The warmth of Summer was in its midst and not a single child in the vast of Biggleswade seemed to have anything troubling their minds at all while running around and playing, enjoying the utmost of their holidays and away from school. However, there were of course rare exceptions, and one of them was a girl lying in the cool shadows of a great tree at the edge of the town.

With her eyes closed and a posture seemingly relaxed, one might presume the girl to be sleeping, relaxing like most other kids at her age of eleven. They would be wrong, because Heather Hawkins was anything but relaxed at the moment.

She had been waiting for a letter to arrive the whole summer, and as September now drew nearer and nearer she had all reason to fear it not coming at all. Yet, to say Heather had been waiting this summer would not be entirely correct. As far as she could remember she had been waiting for that very letter to arrive for the past four years. Though at that time she had known she would not receive it until she was eleven years old, and as she now was she felt as though time had decided to go even slower than it had during these past years.

Heather blinked and opened her eyes, only to find nothing but the blue summer sky broadening itself over the hillside she had been lying on. One could see the city downhills, and Heather distantly wondered how many boys and girls were receiving their letters at this very moment, while hers could be anywhere, and in a worst-case scenario - maybe not even sent. She straightened her back and sat up while running her fingers through her hair and leaning back against the tree trunk.

She was supposed to be waiting for her older brother Matthew under this beech tree while he was on an errand with their father in the city. Matthew, being almost three years older than Heather, were more often busy with errands during the summer, insisting Heather should be enjoying her summer holiday. This, she thought, was very stupid since both of them knew that she would enjoy her summer the best with Matthew.

With her light-coloured, straight long hair (the colour quite hard to precise, but Matthew always defined it as a very light strawberry blonde with hints of gold, a description which Heather thought made her hair sound much more complicated and extraordinary than it actually was) and light amber eyes she and her older brother did stand out a little from the crowd, but it was usually not that attention driving.

Now, if one were to say that Heather Hawkins was nothing out of the ordinary, they would be very wrong. She was not like the many other eleven-year-olds she went to school with, or anything at all like the other inhabitants of Biggleswade.

She was a witch, and hopefully going to be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for her first year this autumn. How she had been looking forward to it; learning about magic, practising it and most of all meeting other witches and wizards. She had done magic when she was younger, but now it would be considered illegal, since she was older and able to control it. She chuckled a bit at the memory. Heather had managed to make the flower beds in front of their house burst in all different colours and sizes when she had been told to water them using the water-can. She and Matthew had thought of it as very funny and pretty, but it wasn't until their dad had managed to remove them that their parents thought of Heather's first attempt at magic as amusing.

Heather briefly wondered wether there were any flower beds for her to fancy up at Hogwarts. She really hoped that there was any garden there at all, for she loved to be out in the sun. But for her to go to Hogwarts at all she needed to receive the letter, her invitation to attend the school. During these past weeks they had all been on the lookout for owls to appear, since that was the normal magical way of delivering mail. But would it arrive by owl? Heather did live with muggles (non-magical people) so perhaps it would show up with all the other letters and bills through the mailman?

This thought had crossed her mind several times, so every morning she and Matthew had carefully gone through every single piece of paper to be found near their house and brought by their mailman.

Heather let out an audible sigh, and shifted back to the more comfortable post she'd had before. Matthew and dad should definitely be back by now, she thought. Maybe they had encountered an owl in the supermarket and were now on their way home with the ticket to her dreams? She giggled at the thought; that would've certainly been quite amusing.

'Heather!'

She turned around, a smile finding itself to her face.

Matthew was half-walking, half-jogging towards where she sat under the beech tree with his glasses tipping slightly on his nose.

'I've been looking for you. Figured you'd be here.' She immediately stood up.

'Did the letter arrive?'

His smile faltered a little at her hopeful tone, but he hugged her in greeting nonetheless.

'No,' Heather's heart sunk as they pulled out of the hug, 'But we've bought ingredients for blueberry pie, just thought you'd like to join mum and me in some afternoon bakery.'

'Sure.' Heather knew she ought to lighten up a little at this; mum's pies were after all delicious. They began walking towards the house - a big blue one with a garden surrounded by a low hedge.

'Don't worry. I know you'll be going to Hogwarts' Matthew said with his usual gentle tone. Heather felt a big lump growing in her stomach, despite her brother's tries at reassuring her.

'But what if I'm not?' she said, 'I really want to go there. I want to do what mum and dad did, I want to go there for the both of u- ' She shut her mouth and looked down. 'Sorry.'

He turned an exasperated look at her, 'It's alright. You know I want you to do everything I couldn't do too. And,' he added with a grin at her sorry look, 'You'll be able to tell me all about it. Be sure to send me some letters often, or I'll be bored to death back here in Biggleswade.'

'Of course!' She practically jumped, 'I'll write to you every single day while I'm there!'

'You really don't have too, or your schoolwork's going to be affected.'

She sent him a smile, 'And you'd better respond or I'll be sending you something else too...' She grinned at the horrid look on his face. They laughed as they stepped inside the hall. Heather felt lighter now, something her older brother always managed at, but there was still a tiny heavy lump there deep in her stomach.

'Matthew, Heather!'

Their mum appeared in front of them, clutching what looked like almost a dozen eggs.

Laura Hawkins was a fit women in her early forties and with hair several shades darker in comparison to her daughter's. She always kept it in a bun while baking, and flour was covering both her cheeks.

'I've already started with the pastry, so could you two sweethearts begin with cleansing the blueberries?' she asked with a warm smile while beckoning them in to the kitchen.

'Okay mum.' The old radio in the corner of the kitchen table was playing a jazz tune, and Heather and Matthew put on the spotted aprons handed to them by their mum.

'How was work?' Matthew asked while pouring up the blueberries from the package into a big white bowl. Laura hummed to the song and turned her head towards Matt.

'All right. My client's been all fussy since last week. No matter how many times I tell him, he just won't understand that there's a law clearly against his use of forks. You'd think most people'd know that throwing a sharp object through the air might result in people suing you.' she laughed, despite the actual quite tragic subject.

Matthew cringed. Heater laughed with her mum; it was usually very entertaining listening to her drabbles about her job as a lawyer.

Both Laura and Keith, Mr Hawkins, were muggles and thus completely non-magical and part of the muggle-community. Keith worked at the library in the centre of town, and he brought home books almost every evening. He mostly had to for labelling and work, but Heather and Matthew both enjoyed reading very much and therefore most of the books in their house were library books brought to them by their dad. It was always a great hassle to search for books whose due-dates were expiring in the house of the Hawkins'.

A man with light brown hair appeared through the door: it was Keith.

He looked rather disturbed, and Heather could in a way see why. The radio was now not the loudest thing in the kitchen, since Laura had begun mixing the pastry using an electronic mixer.

'Laura, could you not mix in a more quiet way? I'm writing a report for Mr Howard-'

Keith began, but seeing that she was obviously not listening to his plea he turned to Heather, who was now squashing the blueberries with a wooden spoon.

'Heather, could you _please _make your mum use a fork or something instead of the mixer?'

Heather grinned at him.

'But dad, forks are dangerous; we don't want anyone getting hurt and mum dragged to court.' she said loudly above the noise. Matthew laughed at the confused face of their father.

'Wha-?'

CRASH-

'AAAAAHH!' Matthew cried in surprise as something big and grey shot past him and landed in the bowl filled with dark-purple sauce with a very loud bang, sending squashed blueberries and pieces of white porcelain across the kitchen.

They all instinctually covered their faces with whatever they had in their hands, and Laura let out a loud curse as she got pastry on her chest.

The shock died down, and jazz tunes now filled the dead silent kitchen. Matthew absentmindedly wiped his glasses free from blueberry as he and Heather, having gotten covered in tiny purple dots all over her apron and face herself, looked with shocking disbelief at the big grey thing, now also covered in blueberries. It began moving, and as it turned around in the remains of the bowl Heather realized with a jolt that it was an owl.

_**Note:** Hi! So this is my first fanfic and I'm so nervous about it. I'd really appreciate it if anyone read this at all and even more if you were to leave a review, and preferably constructive criticism or just anything that will not make me unwilling to continue this story :)_

_I'll try to update to the best of my abilities, so peace out~!_


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